N03467:726
Discourses on various important subjects, nearly concerning the great affair of the soul's eternal…
Discourses on various important subjects, nearly concerning the great affair of the soul's eternal salvation, viz. I. Justification by faith alone. II. Pressing into the Kingdom of God. III. Ruth's resolution. IV. The justice of God in the damnation of sinners. V. The excellency of Jesus Christ. : Delivered at Northampton, chiefly at the time of the late wonderful pouring out of the spirit of God there. / By Jonathan Edwards, A.M. Pastor of the Church of Christ in Northampton. ; [Three lines from Deuteronomy]
Boston: printed by S. Kneeland and T. Green, 1738
Title page typeset from the transcription.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
This seems to have been a very extraordinary Dispensation of Providence: God has in many Respects gone out of, and much beyond his usual, and ordinary Way. The Work in this Town, and some others about us, has been extraordinary on account of the Universality of it, affecting all sorts, sober and vicious, high and low, rich and poor, wise and unwise; it reached the most considerable Families and Persons, to all appearance, as much as others. In former stirrings of this nature, the Bulk of the young People have been greatly affected; but old Men, and little Children have been so now. Many of the last have, of their own accord, formed themselves into religious Societies, in different Parts of the Town: A loose careless Person could scarcely find a Companion in the whole Neighbourhood; and if there was any one that seemed to remain senseless or unconcerned, it would be spoken of as a strange Thing.
This seems to have been a very extraordinary Dispensation of Providence: God has in many Respects gone out of, and much beyond his usual, and ordinary Way. The Work in this Town, and some others about us, has been extraordinary on account of the Universality of it, affecting all sorts, sober and vicious, high and low, rich and poor, wise and unwise; it reach'd the most considerable Families and Persons, to all appearance, as much as others. In former stirrings of this nature, the Bulk of the young People have been greatly affected; but old Men, and little Children have been so now. Many of the last have, of their own accord, formed themselves into religious Societies, in different Parts of the Town: A loose careless Person could scarcely find a Companion in the whole Neighbourhood; and if there was any one that seemed to remain senseless or unconcerned, it would be spoken of as a strange Thing.
This Dispensation has also appeared very extraordinary in the Numbers of those, on whom •e have reason to ⟨p. 16⟩hope it has had a saving Effect: We have about six hundred and twenty Communicants, which include almost all our adult Persons. The Church was very large before; but Persons never thronged into it, as they did in the late extraordinary Time:—Our Sacraments are eight Weeks asunder, and I received into our Communion about an hundred before one Sacrament, and fourscore of them at one time, whose Appearance, when they presented themselves together to make an open explicit Profession of Christianity, was very affecting to the Congregation:—I took in near sixty before the next Sacrament Day: But it must be noted that it is not the Custom here, as it is in many other Churches in this Country, to make a credible Relation of their inward Experiences the ground of Admission to the Lord's Supper.